


Without any strings attached

by Kingrey



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: (I hope I didn't forget anything - don't hesitate to ask!), Buried Alive, Drugged!Mac, Gen, Hurt!Mac, Hurt/Comfort, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other characters are here but not very present so I wasn't sure if I should tag them, and worried Jack of course, yes even in the prompts that have nothing to do with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 23:59:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19306501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingrey/pseuds/Kingrey
Summary: Three one-shots I wrote for Macgyver May (already posted on tumblr)!Week 1: Favourite Friendship - Once this was all over and Jack was sure that Mac was safe and sound in an hospital bed, he would probably kill his self-sacrificing idiot of a partner.Week 2: Hurt/Comfort - As a taxi driver working during the night, Ahmed had seen his lot of weird people but Angus Macgyver sure took the cake.Week 4: Favourite Trope - It took five whole days for Riley to finally call Jack in the middle of his hunt for Kovacs and tell him that Mac went missing.





	1. Favourite Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! It's been a while on ao3 so I thought that I could post these three one-shots that I wrote for Macgyver May! I didn't do anything for the third week because I reallyyy suck at AUs and Crossovers... But I hope that those of you who didn't already read these texts on my tumblr will enjoy it anyway! This event was organised by thephoenixfoundationpresents (on tumblr)!

“I am going to kill you, Angus Macgyver” Jack hissed through his teeth.

Mac only laughed in answer, and let himself be dragged through the forest by his friend. His best friend, who liked to pretend he was mad when he was only very worried. All of that because Mac let himself be a _tiny_ little bit drugged. And, honestly, it wasn’t really his fault, he had taken the sleeping dart for Jack and got it out very quickly - better than a bullet, right?

“If it had been a bullet I would have raised you from the dead only to kill you once again! _What were you thinking?!_ ”

It was all very funny, Mac thought, so he snickered in answer and beamed. Jack sighed and held his partner’s arm tighter when Mac threatened to stumble to his knees. The world was moving weirdly, like a boat. Better than a plane, at least. Mac didn’t like planes, the were just too… _High_. Logically, he knew that it was the safest way to travel, but he really, really didn’t want to fall to his death.

“Nobody’s falling to their death, Mac.”

“Yeah I know”, he replied brightly, “we’re on a boat!”

Then he promptly fell on his face, taking Jack down with him. His best friend knew so many curse words - it was impressive, even if Mac wasn’t sure all of them really existed. He wanted to laugh again, because the whole situation was amusing, but he also wanted to sleep, so he closed his eyes.

“Hey, come on now, no sleeping on the job bud.” Jack’s tone was more afraid than playful now.

“Or you’ll kill me?” Mac muttered, opening his eyes again despite his growing dizziness. Since when was he sea sick anyway?

“Alright, no killing you if you stay awake until exfil, that’s good enough for ya?” Jack joked while taking his pulse.

“Can we get pizza too?”

His friend barked a teary-sounding laugh. “Sure kid, no killing you plus pizza tonight, only if you can stay awake.”

Mac grinned and got up again, even if he felt like a baby learning to walk. When Jack went to take his arm back, Mac searched for his hand instead, and felt warm when he let him hold it. They started walking again, slower than before, and Mac could feel his eyes grow damp each time Jack took care of helping him over a root - or when he glanced at him with concern, or when he squeezed his hand to reassure him.

“What? What’s wrong?” Jack asked as soon as he saw the tears in Mac’s eyes, while putting his left hand on his cheek.

“You… You’re the best” Mac blubbered, trying to explain how much he loved his best friend, how overwhelming it was at first to have his emotions spill out of him without his control. “You’re so nice and… And you didn’t leave me even when you could have, and you watch my back, and you’re funny even when I tell you you’re not and… And…”

“Woah, alright, calm down hoss” Jack smiled, his eyes twinkling. “I love you too but you’re drugged to hell right now. You can make this big confession later, even if I might need to record the bit about me being funny - no way you’re telling me that sober.”

Mac nodded vigorously, then swayed on his feet, then threw himself at Jack to hug him. From Jack’s point of view, it was like being thrown a heavy bag of potatoes - limp and awkward to manoeuvre - but it was Mac, so he hugged him tightly too.

The kid was never that open about what he was feeling, Jack thought with amusement. Even now, he babbled about the fact that he loved Jack and the rest of the team. However, Jack didn’t need some drug to know that his friend loved him - Mac didn’t use words much, he preferred showing affection in his own way.

So, when they finally got home and got pizza, after a brief stay in an hospital room, Mac kept proclaiming his love for Jack - by knowing how he preferred his food; by joking with and about him; by letting him sleep in the guest room which was conveniently adapted to Jack’s tastes; by showing him, in every little gestures, that he valued their friendship more than anything in the world.


	2. Hurt/Comfort

As a taxi driver working during the night, Ahmed had seen his lot of weird people. Sometimes, they were endearing even if they drank too much, other times, they were plainly creepy and he couldn’t wait to get them out of his car. This night had been quiet so far, but Ahmed was exhausted, so when a young blond guy climbed up on his cab and crashed awkwardly on the backseat, he silently hoped that he was a nice and sleepy drunk. And also that he didn’t puke.

“Where to?” he asked, his customer smile ready on his face.

“Uh… H-home?” the blond slurred out.

Ahmed had to keep himself from sighing, turning a little more on his seat to face the guy. His annoyance disappeared as soon as he got a glimpse of the kid’s face - the right half of it was covered in dark and painful looking bruises. The eye on this side was completely closed while the other one was red and unfocused. There was also what looked to be stitches going near his hair.

All in all, the poor kid was a mess.

If there was one thing that Ahmed learned by being a taxi-driver, it was that his nose didn’t belong in other people’s business. If someone was making a call, he didn’t listen in. If someone was sobbing in their friend’s arms, he didn’t make a noise. He kept his eyes on the road unless someone was actively seeking him out, and his clients were grateful for it. But it was the first time that he was confronted to this kind of violence, and he had no idea what he should do.

“I- Do you need an hospital?” he tried.

The kid shook his head harshly. “No, no hospital. I don't… I’m supposed to be okay now. I don’t wanna go back” he exclaimed, trying to get closer to the driver seat and nearly falling forwards. Ahmed helped him sit back again.

“Alright, I won’t force you.” He relented immediately, afraid to startle the kid. Yes, he belonged in an hospital, but he also should absolutely not go back to the streets alone and confused as he was.  "What’s your name?“

"Mac!” He didn’t seem to realise that his voice was too loud. “Well, it’s Angus but - ’s ugly. So Mac!”

“Hi Mac, I’m Ahmed” he smiled, trying to get the kid to focus on him. “You said you wanted to go home, can you tell me where that is?”

After a long pause, Mac smiled brightly. “Los Angeles!”

“Ah, bud, I need your address” Ahmed chuckled awkwardly, feeling as if he was talking to a toddler. A beaten-up and -probably- drugged up toddler with a crooked smile (probably because it hurts his face).

It took some more pushing but Mac finally gave enough instructions that Ahmed could start the car. Well, he had to wait five more minutes while Mac fumbled with the seatbelt - the kid didn’t need a car accident on top of everything else. The destination was twenty minutes away, which was plenty of time for Ahmed to panic. Should he get the kid to an hospital anyway? Or to the police? What if whoever waited for him at home was the person that did this to his face, and Ahmed delivered Mac right back into their abusive arms?

Should he let the kid sleep?

“Hey, Mac? Don’t sleep please it’s, uh… Against the rules?”

“Oh” Mac mumbled, raising his head away from the window. “’M tired.”

The kid looked so pathetic that Ahmed honestly wanted to let him sleep. But he also didn’t want to be responsible for him falling into a coma, so he kept talking about his wife, and his kids, and what he ate yesterday - all he could think about. He also prompted Mac for answers, which were mostly unintelligible but also gave him some clue about his situation.

For example, the fact that Jack was probably worried sick, and that Mac felt guilty for going out. When asked why he went out, he didn’t answer, but five minutes later, even though the conversation had completely shifted, he blurted out that he had wanted to buy coffee and got lost because his head hurts. Ahmed guessed that this was why.

Most of what he said was about this Jack. He even had a two-minutes rant -with a lot of nonsensical sentences- where he animatedly told Ahmed about Jack and how he was an hypocrite because he was sad and worried about Mac’s safety while he himself had broken his leg during their “mission” (Ahmed was not sure what it meant but he didn’t ask). Ahmed nodded and hummed at the right moments, and Mac looked smug now that someone was agreeing with him.

Finally, they arrived in the street that Mac had given, and the kid pointed the right house to Ahmed. The neighbourhood looked peaceful enough, but a lot of bad things could happen behind closed doors. For his part, Ahmed still wasn’t sure about letting the kid back into what could be an abusive household - yes, Mac seemed to love this Jack he talked about so much, but the right side of his face attested of a different reality.

“Listen, Mac, maybe I should go knock on the door for you?” Ahmed asked awkwardly, not really knowing what he was going to do if he saw that the house wasn’t safe.

Mac frowned slowly. “But… Why?”

“Uh… I don’t think you can walk.”

Ahmed wished that it was only a lie, but it was a rightful concern. He hesitated about leaving his key in the ignition (he didn’t think this was an elaborate theft, but wariness saved lives) but one look at Mac and he knew he couldn’t leave the kid without the heater on.

He sighed for the thousandth time since Mac climbed in the car and told him to stay put, even though he wasn’t sure the kid could actually get the seatbelt off.

The house’s lights were on. Ahmed gulped, prayed that it wasn’t some psycho on the other side, and knocked harshly. He heard a crash, a curse, and had one second to glance at his car before the door was opened forcefully.

“Did you fin- wow” a middle-aged man on crutches exclaimed, immediately frowning once he realised that whoever it was that he was expecting at 4pm wasn’t here. “Hi? Why are you here?”

Ahmed opened his mouth without a sound, not to sure how to proceed. This was probably Jack, going by the broken leg, and he seemed intimidating but Ahmed could plainly see the worry in his eyes. He decided to trust Mac’s opinion of him.

“Hi, are you Jack? Because I have your friend, Mac, in my cab?”

For a man on crutches, Jack hobbled pretty fast once he got a glimpse of blond hair. He was already opening the door when Ahmed caught up to him - and he shouldn’t have worried that this Jack would scream at the already confused kid, he only seemed intent to hug him to death. It was probably a painful position for Jack, since he had to lean a little on his injured leg, but it didn’t seem to bother him.

Jack looked suspicious when Ahmed offered to get Mac inside, which was ironic since Ahmed played no part in beating this kid to a pulp, but he guessed that if it was his child, he would do the same. Mac tried to help him walk but his legs weren’t coordinated enough, and Ahmed really didn’t want to see what Jack would do to him if they crashed to the ground. The kid’s head didn’t need anymore hits.

Finally, he got the mostly limp kid to a couch.

“You sure you don’t want me to get him to his bed?” Ahmed asked, even though he was already winded.

“Yeah, don’t worry our friends are coming back here to help me, they were looking for him” Jack grouched. “I can’t believe he snuck out” the man gritted through his teeth, his accusatory glance going over Mac’s head completely going by his 500 watts smile. “The painkillers are messing with him but we all thought he was sleeping it off, like a _normal human being_.”

“He told me he wanted to get coffee” Ahmed added, trying not to smile at Jack’s scoff.

But the apparent grumpiness couldn’t hide the softness with which Jack caressed Mac’s hair out of his eyes, or the way he draped a blanket over him and smiled fondly when the kid got more comfortable. Furthermore, the anger Ahmed could see burn on his features when Jack looked at the bruise told him all he needed about this man’s innocence. He wouldn’t hurt Mac, and even if they didn’t call each other this, they looked like a father and his son.

“Well, I better get going” Ahmed finally said, the anxiety that came with Mac and boiled in his stomach cooling. “I’d suggest putting a lock on his door from now on.”

“Believe me, that wouldn’t stop him” Jack said, his tone too serious for a joke, while balancing precariously on his crutches. “Anyway, what do I owe you?”

“‘Oh uh…” Ahmed paused since he didn’t really think about that. “Don’t worry, I’m happy that I could help him. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened to him if I didn’t pick him up.”

Jack’s worried scowl told him that he didn’t like that thought either. With a last look toward the now sleeping kid (and the realisation that, under good lighting, the bruise looked even more terrible), Ahmed bid them goodbye and went back to his car.

This had been a weird night and Ahmed sincerely hoped that whoever put Mac in this state payed for it. But, if the glimpse he got of Jack was anything to go by, it either had been done or would be soon. That wouldn’t stop him from worrying about this kid from time to time but, the vehicles he came across while going back told him Mac had a pretty good support system.

Ahmed smiled, and decided to call it a night and go home to his family.

(The next day, he nearly had a heart attack when he read a letter telling him that he had been transferred quite a large sum of money for “last night ride”.)


	3. Favourite Trope

As he ran through the cemetery, Jack thought he could feel his blood boil with the fury and the fear that fuelled him. This unnatural heat found its origin in his heart, making it beat twice as hard, before being redirected towards his legs. Each step was longer than the precedent. One mistake and Jack would fall on his face, losing more precious seconds that Mac didn’t have.

He couldn’t afford to lose more time.

It has been two days since Riley risked her career - risked her _liberty_ and called him. But, in reality, it all started one week before, when Jack woke up with a stone in his stomach, unknowingly sensing that something terrible had happened. When, on the other side of the world, a joint operation with the CIA went to hell and Mac disappeared with another agent.

When Riley explained it all, her voice barely hindered by her tears, Jack had wanted to explode. _Why_ , he wanted to scream, _why did it take five whole days and the corpse of the other agent for Phoenix to call him? How dare you_ , he yelled at Desi when she took over the phone, and he never could finish the sentence. _How dare you, how dare you, how dare you?_ He was already taking off towards L.A with four members of his team - none of them made a sound as he screamed himself hoarse. And Desi, her tone serious and angry, yelled back at Jack to pull himself together, to keep his anger for later because they didn’t have time for that.

He was glad to have asked her to look over his team - especially when she showed that she could keep him in check. She explained it all in clear and concise sentences, once Jack calmed his ragged breathing. They all knew that the CIA was not to be messed with - when faced with this failure, they did all they could so this didn’t get out in the world. They told Phoenix that they had to let their agent go, since he was probably already dead. If they protested, well, the CIA knew exactly where to push. After all, Riley’s “betrayal to her country” was never correctly punished, was it? And Bozer’s access to confidential informations when he was only a civilian was highly illegal and could get them all in trouble, right?

“They even threatened to get you to work for them again by force, Jack” Desi had added, more shaken that she wanted to admit.

Jack seethed and nearly broke his hand punching a wall. He understood why they had tried to lay low after that - which had compelled them to not call him. They had searched for Mac and this other agent discreetly, with James neither helping nor hindering their work.

(And Jack swore to himself that when he saved Mac, when his team was whole and safe, he would break James’ face too. He was Mac’s _father_. The kid had spent a year searching for him, months trying to repair their relationship and all the asshole could do was _nothing_?)

Then, this very morning, the body of the CIA agent had turned up, accompanied by a video. The corpse was horrifying on its own, its flesh the witness of a torture that Desi didn’t want to describe on the phone. The video…

Jack had to wait until he was at Phoenix to see it. He had still been in his uncomfortable tactical gear, his other team members silent and awkward behind him when he went straight to the war room. He was all cold business, his mind only focused on finding Mac, and he thought that he had gone beyond his initial anger.

He was wrong.

The quality of the video was poor and grainy, the shot not even stable, but all Jack could see was Mac. Mac and his blond hair matted with blood, with his neck covered in bruises, with a journal hanging loosely on his knees and his eyes unfocused, hazy with pain and fear and probably the effect of some drug. Mac, who was stumbling over scripted words, who flinched each time the gun to his left got closer when he took too long between each sentences.

Mac, whose arms seemed to have been carved out by a knife, but who still managed to move his fingers rhythmically, until Jack recognised it as a code, and not as some twitch of pain. Mac, who was a _genius_.

From then on, Jack wished he could say that it had been easy to track Mac down. In reality, it still took them a day and a half, which was too long, far too long. Jack didn’t show any pity when they finally took over their base, especially when he found one of the leader in the room where the video had been filmed.

The ground was covered in blood. Mac was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” Jack had asked, his voice flat to his own buzzing ears.

The guy smirked. One shot, and he was clutching his knee and screaming. Jack asked again. One shot. One scream. Jack asked again.

Jack remembered how to interrogate someone that didn’t want to talk. No one dared interrupt him. Desi was the only one who stayed at the door, a silent support, the only one on the team that Jack could let see his darkness without wanting to choke. Maybe she was here to stop him if he couldn’t - but he wasn’t going to lose even more time.

_Buried alive_. It felt like a sentence, even though it was mumbled with terror by a broken jaw. Buried alive, three hours ago, in a cemetery at thirty-minutes drive, god-knows in which spot. Buried alive, alone in the dark and the cold, already losing too much blood from his injury, already losing hope after spending a week in the hands of terrorists.

_“If we only think about the math, it takes five hours and thirty minutes to die in a closed coffin”_ Mac once said, when Jack told him about a particularly vivid dream in which he died buried in a casket made of candy. _“But in all likelihood, someone in this situation will panic and try to get out by themself, thus consuming the oxygen much more quickly.”_

Jack had joked at the time, saying that his biggest problem had not been the oxygen, but the fact that he couldn’t stop himself from eating the coffin before suffocating on dirt. Now, he only wished he had let the kid finish his explication. What did “more quickly” entail? Five hours worth of air? Four?

They went to the cemetery, Riley, Bozer and Matty in their coms trying to figure out where was Mac. They spread out, each armed with a shovel, each galvanised by the time that was escaping them, second by second. More than three hours and a half since Mac had forced into a casket, bloody and bruised but still alive, still counting on them. More than a week since he lost his freedom. More than forty-eight hours since Jack stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped _breathing_ because he couldn’t live without Mac, without this skinny kid who brought the sun back in his life and made it all worth it.

So Jack ran through the cemetery, keeping his eyes open, deadly afraid of missing something. Jack ran, his throat burning with the cold of the evening, the fiery sun a symbol of the time that he didn’t have. And when Riley finally found a link between a grave and the terrorists, when there finally was hope, Jack ran twice as fast. He was the nearer to the spot, as if Mac’s soul and his were magnetised. He ran, his body burning, his mind swirling, making his way between graves and thinking about his father, about Mac’s mother, about buried loved ones and the gaps that could never be filled.

He ran, praying _not him, not him, please not him, not now and not alone, not after I abandoned him, not him, not him._

His arms were burning before he realised he already started digging through the freshly moved dirt, yelling for Mac to hang on. He dug and dug and dug, Desi appearing at some point, then his friends from the team after Kovack, all of them trying to get to Mac in time. He dug until he finally felt the coffin under all of that dirt - then the shovel wasn’t enough, it was too big and too clumsy, so Jack got on his knees and dug with his fingers. He scraped the surface of the wood, without any care for the nails he ripped, until enough of it was cleared for the coffin to be opened.

The first thing he noticed was that Mac’s hands were mirroring his own, bleeding and missing nails as he probably tried to escape by himself, fuelled by a primal panic. The second thing was that his eyes were closed and his lips blue.

Jack sprang into action and took hold of the limp kid as gently as he could, hugging him to his chest as he extracted him from the grave. He was cold and covered in dirt and blood.  Desi helped him lay Mac on the ground two meters away from the hole - she was the one that took his pulse, since Jack’s hands were buzzing with pain.

Her nod brought tears to Jack’s eyes, the tension releasing suddenly from his body. Mac was alive. Mac was breathing. Jack put a hand on his hair, afraid to jostle his injuries more than he already had, and took in the sight of Mac’s chest raising and falling minutely with each breath. The sunset made his hair look like gold, even with the blood that stained it.

This was far from over. The CIA could still make good on their threat, it could still hurt their family. Mac was still hurt to a degree that Jack probably couldn’t see - there was a message carved on his skin that Jack didn’t read, and god knows what oxygen deprivation could have done to him; the poor kid had a long hospital stay ahead of him. Jack himself not only still needed to punch Oversight, but he was also probably facing repercussions for leaving his unit and for the way he conducted his interrogation.

But he didn’t think about all that. Not when Mac, his kid in all but blood, moaned and moved, opening his eyes faintly and, after all he had been through, called his name.

“I’m here” Jack choked through his tears, a smile illuminating his features as he decided that he would never leave his family again.

He was here and he would stay.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this (short) one-shot! If you're interested, I'm kingreywrites on tumblr!


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